13. Kale

Finding Parrish Bernadotte was easy.Deciding to find him had been the hard part, but frankly I was tired of jerking off and I had some vacation days left to burn before the end of the year. I could have asked Christian directly, but circumventing him was something Ford had come up with at the bar when I suggested he help me plan a royal kidnapping. When all was said and done, I'd hardly have called it kidnapping, more a facilitated rendezvous with a yet-to-be determined list of repercussions.

After landing at the airport, I'd caught a car directly to the address Parrish had given me. Jetlagged and in dire need of two minutes to brush my teeth, Christian's lifelong best friend sized me up, gave me a spare key, and set off to the palace. I'd offered to get a hotel, but he volunteered his apartment instead, and I'd found it hard to decline. The time was limited, with less than a week before I was due back in New York. Parrish wasn't sure how long Christian would be able to stay away from the palace without drawing security…or worse. The whole thing was a gamble, but when I had lay awake at night reading Christian's emails until I fell asleep, I knew it was worth it.

That didn't mean it was a good idea, though. It was probably anything but. Christian and I had exchanged messages about a lot of things, but none of them ever even touched on the future. We were both stuck in a cycle, a world apart but reliving the same handful of hours over and over. And since I clearly wasn't above hopping on a plane for a booty call, I found myself hunched over the sink in Parrish's bathroom, spitting toothpaste into the basin while I waited for Christian to arrive.

As the minutes creeped on, I worried I had overestimated the brilliance of my plan. Ford and I had come up with more than our fair share of bad ideas after drinking too much wine, and I didn't want this trip to see Christian to become one of them. I was neck deep in what that kind of catastrophe would look like when I heard the sound of a key in the front door and the lock disengaging.

My bag was in the bedroom, phone on the charger, and when Christian sheepishly stepped into the apartment, I didn't know what to do with my hands. He had a suitcase at his feet and a nervous look on his face. His shoulders were tense, but uneven, like he was ready to shrug me off at a moment's notice.

"My American," he murmured under his breath, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He twisted all of the locks into place and sucked in a deep breath, finally meeting my stare.

"Is that what I am?"

"That's what Parrish calls you." He licked his lips, worrying the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue.

"What do you call me?" I asked.

He exhaled with a huff. "I call you Mr. Sheffield."

Heat flickered up my spine, and I flexed my fists, straightening my fingers at my sides and taking a step toward the door. Christian's nostrils flared, but he stood his ground, mouth pulling up into a bratty smile that I'd forgotten I missed until I saw it again.

"Come all the way ‘round the world for that, then?" he asked.

"Get on your knees, princess."

"No kiss?" He teased the question, even as he sank down the ground. One knee, then the other, and all the earlier nervousness was gone from his face. He blinked up at me with heavy, hooded eyelids, waiting for his next instruction.

"I'll give you something to kiss."

I closed the space between us, my belt undone and my fly down before I reached him. Christian's mouth fell open, tongue out and ready. His lashes fluttered closed and I traced my dick across the perfect pout of his lips. It took every ounce of willpower that had ever or would ever exist in my body to not immediately bury myself into the back of his throat. My body was needy and loud, but we had enough time that I didn't need to rush through it like the last time.

"Tell me to stop if you want me to stop," I said.

"Go."

I slapped my dick against the flat of his tongue and slid one hand around the back of his head. He made an unimpressed sound and I snapped my hips, holding him in place as I pushed the head of my cock into the back of his throat. Christian glared up at me through watering eyes, gagging around my girth, but I didn't offer him any reprieve.

"Breathe through your nose," I said.

He huffed a hot breath against the base of my shaft, tickling my pubes.

I held myself in his mouth until the convulsions in his throat calmed down, then I slid all the way out and fucked back in. He gagged again, spit slicking around his lips and down his chin while I fucked his mouth like it was a sex toy. When I was close to coming, I pulled all the way out and stepped back. Christian leaned forward, chasing after my cock. His stare was hazy and his lips were already swollen. I took another step back toward the far end of the room.

"Crawl," I told him.

"Excuse me?" His eyes rolled a little bit before he blinked himself out of a stupor and back into the present.

I took a step backward, then another and another until my back was pressed against one of the open windows on the far wall of Parrish's apartment.

"Crawl," I repeated.

Christian spent less than ten seconds debating the demand before he went onto all fours and began the slow trek across the room. He started toward me, eyes narrowed, but the animosity only made my cock even harder than his mouth had.

"Put your ass in the air," I demanded. "Show me what I came all this way for."

Christian exhaled loudly, accentuating the arch in his back as he weaved his way around Parrish's furniture.

"Does crawling make you feel small?" I asked him.

"It should, shouldn't it?" Christian stopped in front of me, looking up at me like it was obedience that coursed through his veins, not rebellion.

"Does it?"

"No."

"How does it make you feel?"

"I don't know," he admitted, although the flush on his cheeks said otherwise.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you all week," I told him. As if to confirm it, precum leaked out the slit of my cock and mixed with Christian's spit. I tore open the buttons on my shirt and shrugged out of it, then rucked up my undershirt and held it against my chest with my chin.

"Me, or this ass you flew around the world for?" he asked.

"Aren't they the same thing?"

Christian made a noise in the back of his throat and shifted back onto his heels, palms resting on the tops of his thighs. "You came here to fuck me, Kale. What are you waiting for?"

"When you call me by my name, it makes my cock soft," I said, even though it was clearly a lie.

Christian angled his head to the side, the bulge between his legs impossible for either of us to ignore. He reached down and palmed himself over the fly of his jeans, groaning as he caused the friction we were both after.

"Sorry, Mr. Sheffield," he apologized with fake sincerity, using two of his fingers to wipe spit off his lower lip. "We can't have that now, can we?"

I fisted my cock around the base and aimed it back at his mouth. My pulse hammered against my fingers, beating in my ears, the last threads of my self-control ready to snap. How had it only been a week since I'd met this man? Since I'd last had him?

"Do you want me to stop?"

"I'll have you arrested for kidnapping if you do."

I fisted his hair and yanked him onto my cock.

The blow job was short and messy, and I came with my head against the cracked window and my dick on the tip of Christian's tongue. He moaned and sucked as I spilled into his mouth, taking all of my shaft into his mouth like the greedy little boy I already knew him to be. Even after my balls had emptied, Christian kissed and suckled my cock, and my grip on his head turned softer as he worked at me. He dragged his hands up my legs, shoving my pants down as he went, and then he found the bruise he'd left, pressing his finger into the pale yellow remnants of the mark on my thigh.

I winced, smacking his hand away, but I immediately missed the feel of him there. The reminder.

I eased my half-flaccid cock out of his hot mouth and slid down the wall until I was on the floor, eye level with him. Christian was already halfway to subspace, his stare glazed and happy, with a smear of cum and saliva across his chin.

"I think I missed you," I told him.

"More than my mouth?"

I chuckled, crooking my finger and beckoning him closer. He came without protest, which was novel for him, and then Christian was in my lap, half curled against my chest. He was still fully dressed, his skin hot and clammy where I could feel him against me. I wrapped my arms around him, stroking my hand over his head and smoothing out the hairs I'd pulled at minutes before.

"What are you doing here?" Christian finally asked, barely louder than a whisper.

"I don't know. I didn't think this all the way through."

"How far did you get?"

"I knew I wanted to see you again?—"

He cut me off. "Aren't there men you can see in New York?"

"I needed to see you," I corrected.

His hand slid around the exposed skin of my waist, and he traced a soft swirl around the swell of my hipbone. "Why?" he asked.

"Why doesn't crawling make you feel small?"

He groaned, shifting in my lap so his back was against my chest. With his legs splayed out in front of him, he freed his cock from his pants. The tip of his dick was nearly purple, and the rest of his shaft strained for how swollen and hard it was. He licked his palm and curled his hand around himself, giving a slow stroke from root to tip.

"Crawling to you doesn't make me feel small," he said.

"I don't know why I needed to see you."

"Don't lie." Christian's shoulder blades dug into my chest as he arched up, hand moving quicker over his erection.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you," I repeated.

"I am unforgettable."

"I wanted you."

He hummed, head falling against my shoulder. I hooked my ankles around his calves, pulling his legs wide.

"You don't take no for an answer," he murmured, cupping his balls and tugging them away from his body. His other hand was slick with precum and spit, the sound of it louder than my heartbeat.

"Not from you, princess. And not from Parrish either."

"And that's why you're here?"

I covered his hand with mine, loose enough that I didn't interfere with the pace of his wrist. He was twitchy and sweaty, and he came on both of our hands with a strangled shout. Cum shot out of his cock like a geyser, and I caught as much of it as I could, waiting until his hand fell away to let mine move.

I spread his legs wider, far enough that I could feel the way his thighs trembled against mine. Reaching up behind us, I cradled the back of his head with my clean hand, then pressed my cum-stained fingers against his mouth. He let his lips part and I pushed right into his mouth, just like I'd done with my cock. And just like with my cock, Christian shuddered and gagged. I stretched my fingers deep, pushing his own cum back with mine, right into his throat, straight into his stomach.

I laid a kiss against the top of his ear.

"If my cum isn't inside of you, it goes here. Do you understand?"

He nodded, choking around my hand. I pulled it free and he coughed, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

"Yes," he rasped, the single syllable rough as sandpaper.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Mr. Sheffield." Christian dropped his head against my shoulder again, and I loosened the tension of my legs around his. He immediately rolled and curled back into my lap, body vibrating like a happy little cat. With a long and slow exhale, I found myself with the distinct impression it was the first time Christian had been relaxed since his little jaunt to New York. I also realized, it was the first time I felt the same. With the weight of him in my lap, the heat of his mouth around my cock still a fresh memory, I closed my eyes and held him close.

"That's why I'm here, Christian."

It wasn't so much a coherent answer, but it made sense in my heart and it was the absolute best I could offer him considering there were feelings and things floating around in my head that I hadn't had time to make sense of yet. Though, I hadn't much tried either. Up until that orgasm, I'd been running on bad ideas and adrenaline…and a decent amount of top shelf liquor.

He seemed to understand, at least, nodding against my chest, his warm exhale ghosting over the hair in the center of my chest.

"That's why," I said again.

He slid one hand up around the back of my neck, the other around my waist.

"Thank you, Mr. Sheffield."